Fortify the Family

Prov. 24:3-4

Welcome Mountain View Baptist Church to our first Sunday of the year. What a blessing to have the opportunity to begin a new year with a clean slate. It is a fresh start, a new beginning. Your spiritual story for you and your family can be written new. Regardless of past failures, seize the opportunity.

Welcome to our first time guests. You are a special blessing to us and we want to connect with you to get to know you better.

Our theme for 2026 is Fortify the Family. How many of you agree that our families are in need of help? Probably every one of us in this room, either have known a family or know of a family currently who needs help. It might be our own. Help is not in one message or one counseling session or one service. Help is a daily growth process.

In 1994 when I was a pastor in northern California, we had a couple come visit our church. Janet and I made an appointment to go see them. Their apartment was small, he was in the air force, and their financial resources were limited. Soon they joined and began to grow in their walk with the Lord. God began to bless them as they surrendered to the Lord financially and physically. They were loved, welcomed by everyone. The wife soon began a very lucrative real estate business and they got to where they could buy anything they wanted. However, somewhere along the way, the husband began molesting his step daughter. He was certain nobody would ever know. The Bible says, Numbers 32:23 “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.” Nobody knew anything like that was occuring and God withdrew HIs hand of blessing from them. God did know and one night around midnight, I received a call that the husband was arrested. Wow. He confessed to me what he had done and went to jail for 8 years. Their lives fell apart over time and they lost everything. Both husband and wife by their own admission said: it started when they stopped reading their Bibles and praying. It has been said, behind every great fall is a process of wicked thinking. The daily habit and discipline of reading their Bible and praying could have prevented a disastrous life. Leaving God out of their personal life and marriage ruined them. Even to this day, their family is tragically messed up.

It is a strange thing that God who is the greatest Giver of blessing, becomes the most neglected person in their life. Without God, you will not fortify your family. Psalm 127:1 “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

My challenge to you this year is to Fortify Your Family. Satan has declared war on your family and he is doing everything he can to destroy your spiritual values, your entertainment, your children. The home is the very foundation of society. Notice what God says.

Psalm 11:3 “If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do?”

As we enter this new year, we will go to several topical studies to give you ammunition to Fortify Your family. There are several Sunday night series planned out and intended to help your family. There will be a study on Biblical communication, Peace in the Home, Living with Biblical Convictions, and how to build Biblical family values. Thursday night series will be Principles on child rearing, handling our finances Biblically, enjoying life together, and on how to pray as a family.

The studies are intended to help you and your family. However, it will only help if you make a commitment to be here for these studies. It is like going to the doctor for illness and leaving the office with no intention of following the instructions. God will have instructions that can totally transform your family. God wants to fortify your family this year.

Just a thought to you who have raised your own family, you could either invite your children or share with them these basic Bible truths which God offers to help them also.

How do we define a family?

A family may be a single mom with children, a couple with no children, a single dad with children, a single man or woman with no children. It may be a blended family. This theme then applies to everyone. Let me encourage you this year, to make a practice to invite at many as you can to these services.

This month our study will be centered around God’s Design for the Family. Next week: God’s Plan for the Family.

In the passage we read, God teaches how a home is built. Here God is laying a foundation on Fortifying the Family. There are three characteristics of a home that is fortified.

These characteristics are found in three key words in these two verses: wisdom, understanding, and knowledge

Characteristic 1. . .

Wisdom

Wisdom starts with God. Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: And the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” The Bible speaks of two kinds of wisdom: earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. The book of James defines these two.

James 3:13–15 “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.”

James is telling us this is not good wisdom and when we apply earthly wisdom to our homes, there will be strife, confusion, and pride. Looking to TV talk show hosts, or social media for help with our family is not God’s answer. If we start with worldly wisdom, it will be flawed.

11  All the wisdom of the world is childish foolishness in comparison with the acknowledgment of Christ. Martin Luther Table Talk (16th century)

Martin Luther (Founder of the German Reformation)

When you apply heavenly wisdom the outcome will be totally different. James 3:17 “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”

A home that is to have peace and harmony will be one where Godly wisdom is applied. To get Godly wisdom, this means we MUST read God’s Word daily and seek God daily. It is does take diligence and discipline. James 1:5 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

Wisdom is something that is stored in our heart over time. It is foundational principle on which the home must be built. You cannot just get a dose of wisdom when you believe you need it, you build it up by spending time with God and draw it out during daily life and daily decisions. How do I handle a problem with my children? How do I witness to my neighbor? How do I witness my family? How do I live for God in a Godless world? How do I communicate with that person who is difficult to talk with?

As we draw from God’s resource of wisdom that He places into our lives, we will begin to see God working in unusual ways in our life. This daily process is developed as we apply what God teaches us.

First, a word about wisdom. What is it? We must not confuse it with knowledge. Knowledge is information; wisdom is application. Knowledge is comprehending facts; wisdom is handling life. Knowledge is theoretical; wisdom is practical.

Roger Ellsworth

Godly wisdom begins with God and we are asking God to endue us with His wisdom as we deal with family issues.

One family had a problem with their daughter stealing a bracelet from Maceys. When caught, she was arrested. The parents took her home and made her pay the fine that was three times the amount of the product she took. She worked for the money, she gave up any birthday money she received until her fine was paid. That is Godly wisdom.

Characteristic 2. . .

Understanding

This word is used 247 times in the Bible. It means insight. The idea is to discern and this refers to discernment between good and evil. Use Godly discernment that leads to proper choices. When you come to decisions, you ask God to give you discernment through the decision.

I knew of one family that gave their children cell phones without any restrictions or filters, placed in their bedrooms cable TV with no restrictions, and could date anyone they chose. It should come as no surprise this lack of Biblical discernment led their family to disaster and heartbreak. This is poor discernment and lack of understanding.

We must build our homes on understanding of the times, the evil that lurks around the corner, and the ungodly influences that come into our lives through social media and TV.

Daniel 1:3–4 “And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes; Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.”

The Bible gives us the illustration of Daniel and his friends in captivity. Even though they were help captive in a pagan culture and schooled by the Godless, they lived for God. We will look at this later.

This means they were understanding in the time, the location, and the influences in their lives. This means families must understand the importance of church attendance, of the impact of social media, and the peer pressure of friendships. Families must discern the dangers that are lurking in the world.

It is expedient then that the understanding should be occupied in prayer, as well as the heart and mouth: “I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.”

John Bunyan

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.”

He who is his own guide is guided by a fool. He that trusts to his own understanding proves that he has no understanding. An Instructive Truth, Volume 50, Sermon #2893 - Jeremiah 10:23

Charles Spurgeon

In fact we are convinced that the single most serious problem people have with the Bible is not with a lack of understanding but with the fact that they understand most things too well!

Gordon D. Fee; Douglas Stuart

Characteristic 3. . .

Knowledge

This word or the root of this word is used 944 times in the Bible. It has shades of different meaning which means to recognize. The word carries learning and judgement based on facts. This is experiential knowledge where through learning we apply this knowledge for proper use in everyday life.

6699 Our knowledge, compared with God’s, is ignorance.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

One can have knowledge without having wisdom, but one cannot have wisdom without having knowledge.

R. C. Sproul

God’s Word is all truth and it is the fountain of knowledge. We learn from God His ways and His Word that will impact our life.

5837 Home: where each lives for the other and all live for God.

Anonymous

If your home is to be fortified, you will need right knowledge which is centered in God’s Word and Godly obedience. Will you ask God to fortify your home this year? God has already given the truth to fortify the home. The real question will be: will you seek God’s truth? Will surrender to God’s Word this year? Perhaps God would have you bring your family and commit here at the altar to Fortify your Family. Will you come to make that commitment?

Maybe you are here today and you have never received Jesus as your Savior. Will you receive Him today?